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A back-to-school penguin with some helpful words of advice for the new school year!

General Tips for Starting School

1. Smile and introduce yourself to people- whether you’re sitting next to them or have seen them in more than one of your classes. Everyone likes to make new friends (even if we’re too shy to do it most of the time).

2. Find which clubs look interesting and go to their first meetings- there’s never an obligation to join, but you might meet a lot of new friends.

3. Get advice from other students on if your classes/teachers are difficult and figure out which ones you’ll need to work the hardest in.

Tips for Starting College

1. It’s normal to feel a little lonely or homesick. It’s a huge change into a whole new environment, but you will adjust quickly.

2. Track how long it takes to walk to your classes! If it’s across campus, it might take 15 minutes to get there (and to find the room).

3. Keep an eye on your meal plan- you don’t want to run out or have a lot left over. *Go out and eat dinner with people as a nice way to make friends!

4. Don’t buy textbooks from the school’s overpriced bookstore! Find them sold online instead, or even as e-books.

‘All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.’
Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one daz he forgets to feed his livestock. the ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organized to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the ideals of the rebellion are corrupted, then forgotten. And something new and unexpected emerges...

A fantastic feat of architectural trickery, this anti-gravity ante-room installation appears to hover in thin air and open up into nothingness. It sports a single point of contact with the ground below – a ladder propped against it, ostensibly placed to access the amazing space.

The piece was designed by Leandro Erlich (some images by Martin Argyroglo) of Argentina for an annual art festival in France, but the artist is known elsewhere as well for his vertigo-inducing work.

The ladder is the secret behind supporting this tenuous chunk of building, being much stronger than it first appears. A set of furniture stacked on it appears to be waiting to be taken to the top.

The Shaft was set in the Sean Kelly Gallery of New York and took visitors through a sideways version of an elevator void. Stuck Elevator at the same gallery gives one a peek at one of those jarring experiences one hopes to avoid for live.

Touch input has already almost entirely eliminated the need for physical keyboards and mouses, but soon, it won’t even be confined to a screen. Researchers are developing systems that can register and translate hand movements in thin air, or even replicate the sensation of three-dimensional objects and textures. Here are 13 intriguing touch tech inventions.

Touch Tech for Artificial Limbs

Prosthetics allow amputees to do all sorts of things they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise, but they’ve been missing one very crucial thing: the sense of touch. That could change, with experiments at the University of Chicago developing a moldable plastic material containing piezoelectric powder that can sense pressure at any point on a surface by turning it into an electric voltage. They were able to translate those electric signals to the human nervous system, so they can be interpreted by the brain as touch. The next challenge is adapting this touchscreen technology, borrowed from smartphones, to the soft and curved surfaces of prostheses.

Feeling Objects in Thin Air

Imagine being able to touch something that’s not really there. A new kind of touch technology being developed by the research wing of the Walt Disney Company allows users to feel textures on a touchscreen as well as touching holographic objects projected into space, as through an Xbox Kinect. Called ‘haptic technology,’ it works by blowing small rings of air at a user to simulate texture, movement or collisions with objects. It could potentially revolutionize the gaming experience, and also be useful in medical settings.

Board Transforms Touch into Sound

Developed by London-based studio Bare Conductive, the ‘Touch Board’ translates touch into sound. Any conductive material can be turned into an interface; in this case, electrically conductive paint is applied to a surface. You connect the touch board to a speaker, and plug it into a micro USB cable. Interaction with any of the electrodes cause an MP3 player to play an associated track from the card.

Transmit Audio Messages With the Touch of a Finger

What if you could hear through someone’s finger? ‘Ishen-Den-Shin’ technology (named for a Japanese phrase meaning “what the mind thinks, the heart translates”) uses the human body as a sound transmitter. A handheld microphone connected to a computer records as soon as it hears a person speak and transforms it into a sound loop which is converted into a harmless high-voltage inaudible signal transmitted to the microphone’s conductive casing. That means whoever holds the microphone becomes a human sound emitter. If they touch an object or another person’s ear with their finger, the small sound vibrations can be heard.

Augmented Reality Touchscreen Interface

An augmented reality touchscreen interface from Fujitsu Laboratories can turn any surface into a touch screen using off-the-shelf cameras an projectors. Users can trace their fingers across a document on a table, copy it as digital data, and display it virtually. The camera measures irregularly shaped objects on a table, and automatically adjusts the coordinate systems that make it possible to match finger movements and touching of objects to the digital display projected onto physical objects.

Eric Hillman and Brian Holl author Foreign Fields that make me feel I am escaping within the grace of enthralling novels. Delicate trembles near calm rolling thunder are sung by a person immersed in ambient wonder on paths lit from acoustic guitar before being swept off his feet by flourishing strings and confessing secrets to a hopelessly romantic piano. Anywhere But Where I Am and the striking live set Tuscaloosa turn pages of intimate harmonies lending me free.

Sand Prints is a series of ephemeral art created by environmental artist Ahmad Nadalian. Each site-specific piece is a small sculpture naturally blended into a beach or desert landscape. The sculptures become a part of the surrounding land and provide viewers with the opportunity to explore, touch, and even disrupt the final images.

In all of his work, the artist redefines ancient rituals and symbols in contemporary ways. This project is inspired by an ancient printing technique that used carved cylinders to create repeating patterns. Nadalian's modern-day carvings include living creatures like fish, snakes, and crabs, as well as floral patterns that he rolls along the surface of the sand to produce the long rows of repetitive illustrations.

The beauty of each piece is that the loose earth can hold the designs for only so long before the wind disrupts the arrangement or the tide washes it away. Through this fleeting process, Nadalian believes he is making an offering to the Earth, hoping to heal the spirit of our neglected environment. He says, "Art offers a blessing and hope for harmony with the past, with the earth, and the heavens."

Stop Pissing Me Off - What to Do When the People You Work with Drive You Crazy

Details:

Stop Pissing Me Off: What to Do When the People You Work with Drive You Crazy

English | 336 pages | ISBN-10: 1593375484 | PDF | 12.79 MB

This is a nitty-gritty, witty and concise book for anyone who is fed up with another person in any kind of work situation. This is a field guide for everyday people in the trenches at all levels of business who need to understand the underlying reasons for difficult people, manage those difficulties, work productively with a diverse work force, and transform work misery into productivity. It shows readers how to get results--even from people they can't stand, put themselves in someone else's shoes, stand up for themselves as...

The first magazine devoted entirely to DIY technology projects, MAKE Magazine unites, inspires and informs a growing community of resourceful people who undertake amazing projects in their backyards, basements, and garages.